Reid: Why Parliament matters plenty now

Parliament doesn’t always matter. That’s a given for some, an outrage to others. But for the next few months traditionalists can rejoice: Parliament is going to matter plenty.

That’s not simply because this new session will be our last before the next election. It’s because it’s the first since our economic and fiscal outlook was shattered like a broken window. Plunging oil prices are already threatening the financial surplus that the Harper Conservatives were banking on to secure re-election. Now it’s forcing critical adjustments to the public appeals that will form the foundation of each party’s campaign strategy.

On the fly and in the face of dramatic economic events, the script to the 2015 election is being rewritten. Thanks to the calendar, it will be in Parliament — in the daily battle of inches and insults — where that redrafting will most obviously occur. For the party leaders, there will be no better opportunity to retouch their economic message than on the Hill, leveraging the dedicated media attention that surrounds Parliament’s daily question period and steady diet of scrums.

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Starting Monday, competing ways of thinking about our all-of-a-sudden-once-again-teetering-economy will be on clear offer. The Conservatives will seek to return to the narrative that worked so well for them in the last two elections: In fragile times, you can’t afford the risk that comes with changing leadership. They’ll caution voters that it was always foolhardy to consider making the untested Justin Trudeau the nation’s leader. Now that our economic standing is once again in peril, such a decision, we’ll be warned, would be downright self-destructive.

The Liberals, unsurprisingly, are sounding a different note. They’ve stepped up the attack, insisting that the government’s failing economic policies have led us back to this insecure position. Asserting that Harper placed all of Canada’s economic eggs in the petrodollar basket, they charge the government has left us horribly unready to manage a shift in world prices. And taking straight aim at Conservative claims to managerial competence, they’ll pound away at the imprudent decision to spend the surplus on income-splitting before it was fully banked.

For their part, the NDP will urge voters to agree with all of the above — by all means, blame Harper for the mess that we’re in but don’t dare trust Trudeau to steer us forward. Instead, they’ll ask Canadians to have faith that a new NDP government would best protect an economically vulnerable middle-class. Already, we see NDP operatives rushing to remind media that provincial governments in their mould have superior fiscal credentials — attempting to blunt worries that a Mulcair administration would prove unaffordable even as they continue to unveil plans for new spending.

It will be a day-by-day knife fight of political messaging and economic prescriptions. To the winner goes the enormous advantage of framing the context within which the October election will be held. That won’t guarantee a campaign victory — but it will carry one of the party leaders a good part of the distance.

In preparing for this brawl, each leadership team has cause to be concerned. Uncharacteristically, the Conservatives have so far appeared positively incoherent. Joe Oliver, the unluckiest public office holder since Eddard Stark, offered such a thin explanation for delaying the federal budget that accusations of panic quickly followed. In reply, Jason Kenney took to the airwaves promising spending cuts only to be rebuked — albeit anonymously — by others within his own government. As confusion mounted over the Conservatives’ intention to tighten fiscal policy, the central bank pulled the fire alarm and loosened monetary policy — possibly to compensate for the government’s moves. And that’s just been this past week. It’s been, to put it generously, pure bedlam.

More fundamentally, Harper runs the risk of trying to win the next war with a strategy borrowed from the last. He has twice defied political gravity by avoiding blame for economic weakness and turning it, improbably, into a reason to disqualify his opponents. Can lightning be expected to strike three times running?

By contrast, if the Liberals were shaken by this sudden turn of events, they’ve kept it well concealed. Trudeau leapt into this week’s winter caucus meeting with an energetic and focused economic critique. Setting the stage for next week, he accused the Conservatives of improvisation and misplaced priorities while promising a more balanced — if still vague — approach. Now he must prove that he can carry and elaborate upon that message in Parliament, an arena that has stubbornly confounded the Liberal leader and proven to be his most glaring handicap.

Complicating matters further is the uneven way in which economic distress affects the country. In Western Canada, layoffs in the oil patch, talk of a new Alberta sales tax and stalled capital spending will create a sense of immediate economic loss. In Central Canada however, a lower dollar, price relief at the pumps and a rebounding U.S. economy could elevate near-term confidence. In condemning Harper’s approach, Trudeau will need all his skills to avoid sounding like he is kicking the West when it’s down. His electoral self-interest remains in Ontario and Quebec but he won’t want to squander the efforts he’s made to present himself as a leader with a truly national perspective.

As with so much else these days, the most difficult task falls to Mulcair. On the one hand, any chance to showcase his considerable skills in Parliament should work to his advantage. On the other, the risk of becoming Trudeau’s stalking horse is gigantic. Unleashing his barbed tongue to shred Harper’s economic program does Mulcair little good if those voters simply break away and fall to the Liberals. The NDP must figure out a way to become the beneficiary of their leader’s prowess — but that’s easier said than done as the economy seems already to set up as a classic head-to-head clash between Harper and Trudeau.

Inevitably, the risks of this coming session of Parliament are greatest for Harper. Such pronounced economic turbulence generates impenetrable uncertainties for any incumbent. But Trudeau must find a way to make this session his. The opportunity to seize ownership of economic wellbeing — and to confirm the ballot question as ‘Time For a Change’ is within grasp. But if he’s to do it, he’ll have to do it in Parliament. It is a moment he must rise to.

Scott Reid is a principal at Feschuk.Reid and a CTV News political analyst. He was director of communications for former prime minister Paul Martin. Follow him on Twitter.com/_scottreid.

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